Good Enough
by Clar the Pirate
Summary: Snow White. A failed One that Failed, actually - but it's terribly cute about it.


_"Kathy, I'm lost," I said though I knew she was sleeping._

– America; Simon and Garfunkel

* * *

**Good Enough**

When he kissed her she didn't open her eyes, look deep into his heart, and smile a smile that promised forever. But she was the one – he knew it from the moment he saw her – and he wasn't going to give up so easily. He ordered some men back to the city for a cart and when they returned he took her home, class coffin and all.

He had her installed in the room next to his own. She was alive, he knew, though she didn't breathe. If he pressed his ear to her breast he could hear her heart beat. It was so slow, like water dripping from a tap. And if he tried to anticipate, to guess when the next beat would come, time seemed to stretch out further and further until it was an eternity before he heard that soft, hollow pulse.

He got into the habit of talking to her.

"Today, I had a fight with my little sister over not leaving shoes right in the middle of the hallway where people are trying to walk. She makes me so mad."

"I saw an ant for the first time in forever – I hadn't thought about one in years. Isn't that weird? They used to be everywhere when I was a kid. I'd forgotten how beautiful they are; three perfect black spheres in a row."

He liked being with her, and liked to pretend he could see that serene sleeping face change minutely as she listened to what he said.

"There was a beggar on the street when I went to open the factory. He didn't even look up, just stared at his feet with a bowl sitting in front of him and a sign. And I walked right by him, and I thought 'well, I don't have any coins on me' but if I had asked anyone, _anyone_, they would have given me everything in their pockets, 'cause you can't say no to a prince, right? I was so stupid I started blaming him, like if he'd looked up and made a fuss then I would have _had_ to do something and why did he have to be so _beaten_, it's not like it's my fault life is unfair. I'm so disappointed in myself I feel sick. Sick to my stomach, sick at heart."

"One of the most important moments of my life: I climbed out onto the turret roof and looked up at the stars and said 'hello! hello! hello!' over and over. And I didn't hear anything but, you know, there was a reply."

"I wish you could have seen it. It would've made you laugh."

Sometimes it was the only thing which got him through the day, knowing that at the end of it he could go and sit with her and soak up the still calm which drifted through the room like the tide.

"_Damn it –_ I don't care what they say, I don't care what a person's done. You don't kill people, you _do not_ kill a person. Lock them up, yes. Remove them from endangering society, yes. But we have to give a person a chance to repent, to feel remorse. Rarely are people behind bars psychopaths – they are just people and no one, _no one_ on earth has the authority to judge them. No one. And I will not be forced to be judge and executioner because of the petty, sanctimonious, _smug_ little morals of men who've known nothing but privilege. I know what they'll say, they'll say you want to reward these murderers? Sitting in a cosy cell with two meals a day, that's a better life than some of your good, law-abiding citizens have. Yes, that is exactly what I want, and so what? So _what_? That means we need to make _everyone's_ life better. That means we are not working hard enough and we have not done enough – that we need to make life better, for everyone, from the bottom up, that's our responsibility. We are not nearly good enough, we are not _nearly_ good enough to kill that man . . . damn it."

He didn't try kissing her again because, well, it was weird enough that he kept a girl who seemed to be dead in the room next to his without going out of his way to start rumours about necrophilia. Really though, it felt like an imposition. He knew when she opened her eyes he would be her one too but first she had to open her eyes. Taking advantage of her was not an option; he loved her.

So he kept her company and hoped she would remember all he had told her when she woke up.

"Did you know the collective noun for writers is a _worship_? The poet laureate told me that today, but I don't think I believe him. You can't trust writers, can you."

"Bloody Lord Peters started talking about the _flood_ of refugees from the war again today – like they're some type of natural disaster that will indiscriminately destroy land and homes and livelihoods when they're not. Why do I have to keep reminding him that people are people? Why does he find it so bloody hard to remember?"

"The sunset's beautiful tonight. Vermillion and ochre and cadmium and all those other colours you can't say in real life without being looked at funny . . . You know, I've never understood why melancholy is called the _blues_. Blue is clear skies and sunshine on your face and being warmed from the outside in. The _sultry greys_ would be – ha, no! I mean, it's exactly what I think melancholy feels like, I just can't say 'sultry' and keep a straight face."

But then one day.

"They're attempting an alliance with the neighbours again. And I try to tell them I've found the one, that until she answers one way or another they should assume I am unavailable for machinations. Not that they listen to me. My father's thrown me into politics to make me aware of my responsibilities, to force my hand matrimonially with the realisation of how precariously the good of the country is balanced. But I'm good at it, I'm really good. People leave my negotiations feeling happy and satisfied when they've all been politely manipulated into doing things my way. Until yesterday – it's why I left in the middle of a sentence last night, sorry. Yesterday, it hit me like a ton of bricks, the crofts and land I had traded for a duke's promise to maintain the roads in his province were people's homes. I had visited them, had food and drink and listened to stories about lost sheep and children climbing up on the roof and falling through holes in the old thatch. And then I realised how long it must be since I've left my precious little castle if I've _forgotten _them."

He took her hand.

"I don't want to rush you. Make sure everything that wants sorting is sorted. But I need you to wake up now. I can't do this alone. If I try, I'll either die of exhaustion, be found one day curled up in a whimpering ball sucking my thumb, or I'll stop caring – all the empathy and compassion wrung out of me by everything I can't fix. I need someone to tell me it's all right when I fail so I'll be strong enough to get back up and say no, it is not. I need someone to remind me who these _people_ I keep talking about are. I need someone to love them as I do, to be among them when I'm stuck in this precious little castle. I need you to be my Queen. I know it's a lot to ask – maybe too much – but I won't ask anyone else."

She opened her eyes.

"Hello," she said.

His heart stopped.

"H-hello."

"I don't think we've been introduced."

"I think we're long past introductions."

She looked deep into his heart, "Yes. Yes, we are," and it started again harder and faster than he could ever remember it beating before.

"It's nice to meet– to talk to you at last."

"I'm glad you could make it."

"You shouldn't be–" she began.

"I mean to say . . ." she tried again.

"You know," she said, "I'm not the person you think I am. I mean, I'm just, I'm really not."

When he didn't say anything, she took a deep breath.

"I spent the first six months of this," her free hand made a dithering circle in space, "_sleep_ thinking of ways to hurt my stepmother. Her feet encased in lead shoes heated red hot, I decided in the end – she was going to dance at my wedding. And then, then I started to listen, I actually paid attention to you, because you kept talking to me, all the time, even though I couldn't – and _then_ I thought, I'm not the person he needs, I'm not nearly good enough so it's better if I just stay asleep so he'll find someone, _you_ could find someone else. But then, you said, just now – you said – and I thought maybe I could _mean_ something. I mean . . . . Honestly, I couldn't care less what the collective noun of _anything_ is, so I am not the person you think I am. But I could try to be – I'd like, you know, to try."

He looked down at the hand still in his, ran his thumb lightly over her knuckles, and glanced back up. "Depends on how good you are at kissing really."

She smacked him lightly upside of the head, and smiled a smile that promised forever.

* * *

_I generally hate it when politics take over a story quite that obviously, so sorry if it felt like being walloped about the head with a wet salmon. But despite the sentiments being very close to my own views on life, the universe, and everything (and so what if Lord Peters' first name may in fact be Winston?), it really did spring from the virtuous intention of exploring the character – that is, what would be the hardest part of being a prince? There's probably a lot of other answers, but to me it's the idea that a prince (in that semi-medieval sort of period I always picture fairytales happening in, and yet so rarely use the language of) is a God-appointed ruler and lord over people, that he is entitled and expected to be superior to them, legally, morally. That's a terrifying burden to be heaped upon a normal, muddlingly-good person who suffered an accident of birth._


End file.
